The present invention relates to a system for removing the contaminates from water, more particularly a closed loop, zero discharge system for use with industrial washing equipment.
Many businesses use steam cleaners or pressure-water cleaners to remove grease, oil, etc. from all types of machinery. These systems are well known and typically involve the spraying of steam or pressurized water onto the machinery.
The waste water, contaminated by the grease, oil, anti-freeze, fuel products and/or other petroleum based products discharged directly onto the ground constitutes a major cause of ground water pollution. Thus, it is a policy of many waste water treatment facilities that no water that has been contaminated by any petroleum-based product should be discharged into a municipal sewer system unless specified procedures and standards have been met. It is the responsibility of each individual business owner to install a system which will eliminate the contaminants from their waste water in order to allow them to meet the required standards.
It is also known to use ozone to clean water. Typical systems using ozone can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. to Teller et al. (4,021,347), Laraus (4,104,166 and 4,250,040) and Tamir (4,804,478). Ozone has been found to be a powerful oxidant and is 600 to 3000 times more active against bacteria than chlorine in similar concentrations. In addition to being more effective than chlorine, ozone does not exhibit the drawbacks of chlorine, such as odor and/or skin irritation.
However, the difficulties in generating and distributing the ozone throughout the water to be treated has prevented the widespread usage of ozone purifications systems.